How to Identify What Part of a Plant a Vegetable Comes From

Fruits and vegetables are an important part of our daily food intake. We eat fruits and vegetables to stay healthy and strong. Eating different fruits and vegetables means we are eating different plant parts. The parts of the plant we eat are the areas of stored food. When we eat vegetable parts we are eating roots, stems, flowers, leaves, seeds and fruit.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Identify the leafy part of the plant as leafy vegetables, which include spinach, lettuce, and cabbage. Leafy vegetables are green or have green in them.

2. Hold up a root, such as a carrot or a radish, and identify these vegetables as part of the root of the plant. Other root crops include sweet potatoes, turnips and parsnips. Their colors vary from red and orange to white.

3. Do not think of potatoes as root crops, they are actually an edible stem. Because buds sprout on the potato and grow other plants they are considered a stem. Asparagus is also a stem.

4. Leave the vegetables broccoli and cauliflower growing in the garden for a long time and watch their buds open just like a flower. We do not ordinarily eat flowers, but these two vegetables are considered the flower part of the plant.

5. Eat sweet corn and you'll be eating the seeds of a plant. The seeds form in the fruit and flower part of the plants. These include: peas, rice, corn, peanuts, popcorn, soybean seeds and sunflower seeds.

Tips & Warnings

• The layers of an onion are leaves and are considered the leafy part of a plant.
• Some fruits that are mistaken as vegetables are tomatoes, oranges, cucumbers, peppers, watermelons, muskmelons and strawberries.

[ellischristina]

on 4/26/2009 Those are some very interesting points. You got my thought processing stimulated, now I am going to be analyzing my fruits and vegetables and wondering what "part" I'm eating. Thanks for the unique article. 5*s